


The Lover in Midwinter

by AvaRosier



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Jonsa Secret Santa 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 01:52:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17132807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvaRosier/pseuds/AvaRosier
Summary: When you somehow end up snowed in with your not-even-an-ex Crush over Midwinter, that's just Fate being a fickle bitch. Right?





	The Lover in Midwinter

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Jonsa Secret Santa 2018, for the lovely saracollinskay! Happy Holidays and enjoy Jonsa snowed in together with mutual pining and somewhat kinky smut.

 

The summer weather had persisted longer than usual in the south and that was why the harsh onset of winter caught everyone by surprise. Sansa had at least booked her flight back home for the holidays over a month ago so she wasn't scrambling at the last minute like many other students were. But foresight meant nothing in the face of the worst blizzard to hit Westeros in two decades. Sansa boarded her flight that afternoon knowing well enough that any flights out of Oldtown would likely be grounded by nightfall.

At first, it'd been hilarious to watch these Southroners run around like chickens with their heads cut off every time there was a few inches of snow on the ground. It was considerably less fun when lack of infrastructure preparation meant having to wait on the tarmac for forty minutes while the runways were salted and the plane de-iced. It'd been a hard semester even by grad school standards; Sansa had taken on a heavier courseload than she should've, and all she wanted was her mother's cooking to make everything better.

She made it as far as the Neck before the pilot announced apologetically over the intercom that they had no choice but to divert to Seagard. This did not bode well for Sansa because she had never dealt well with having to alter her plans. She knew nobody in the small seaside city, so she accepted the airport's offer of a cabin for the night at a reduced rate. She wasn't proud of the way she teared up when she called her parents to angrily explain what was happening.

Ned and Catelyn did the usual parent thing: told her it was going to be all right, at least she was going to be safe and warm tonight, and if she needed them to, they would send her money. And okay, Sansa was twenty-three, she'd only just started living on her own in an apartment that she worked and paid rent for in a city thousands of leagues away from Wintertown, it was a new kind of responsibility and therefore she shouldn't be too ashamed of how much the offer of money comforted her and made the whole experience seem less a disaster and more an adventure.

Given that tourism was down at the moment, most of the hotel rooms were being taken by other passengers on flights that have been grounded here. She was lucky to be getting an actual _cabin_ , albeit a tiny one. It was on the slope of a mountain and when she dragged her overloaded suitcase across the threshold and shoved aside the drapes, she could see snowy evergreens to the north and the glittering lights of the city to the south-west. In the distance, the water of the bay was dark but there were boats still on the water, though she suspected they couldn't go anywhere due to ice.

The cabin was decadent by her standards. Sure it had the usual flat-screen TV and a cozy living room area, a small kitchen, and a fireplace. But that bed? It was king sized, with a plush plaid comforter and a truly unbelievable number of unnecessary pillows. Sansa took one look at the bed and made a plan for her night here in Seagard. And it would _only_ be a night here if she had anything to say about it. This might be an adventure right now, but it wouldn't be tomorrow when she returned to the airport with the expectation that she could fly out and finally make it home.

Night fell fast and Sansa headed out to one of the nearest restaurants on the fringes of the city. The place was decked out with a Sevenmas tree in one corner and multi-colored lights hanging along each wall, wrapped around an attractive silvery garland. She ordered a dinner of clam chowder with a hunk of bread. Comforting, but not quite filling. That was because she had bigger plans for her night, since this was an adventure (minor, not grand) after all.

On her way back to the cabin, she stopped by the corner market to load up on snacks and alcohol. She got a little carried away, especially when she spotted the cheese balls and the small tubes of salami. She went into the liquor area next and grabbed a bottle of wine. She might be stuck in a snowstorm away from home on Midwinter's Eve Eve, but she was going to enjoy every last second of it.

It felt good to shuck off her clothes and pull on her warm, light blue flannel jammies with lemons all over them, and a pair of thick socks. Sansa flung the covers back and threw herself onto the mattress, the wine bottle open on the table next to the bed, and queued up the next episode of CSI: Sunspear on her laptop, before settling in to get pleasantly drunk.

“This is the life,” she told herself, only half facetiously. She made it just past half the bottle before she turned off the TV and the lights and passed out for the night.

Her dreams were still half hazy when she was stirred awake. At first, Sansa wasn't sure why she had woken up. Just after she decided it had to do with the alcohol making its way through her system, she heard a rustle and realized with growing horror that she was no longer alone in the cabin.

A heavy weight dropped onto the bed, and a low voice let out a relieved, “ _fuck_.”

Now, Sansa didn't have much in the way of weapons but she had taken self-defense classes before. She tensed her body, coiling it like a spring until she had the courage to strike. She flung off the covers and screamed as she shoved at the intruder. “GET AWAY FROM ME, YOU BASTARD!” She managed to scramble off the bed and ran toward the door, intent on getting to the kitchen where there were knives. But the intruder had closed the door and fumbling with that cost her precious seconds.

There was a bit off curse behind her before light flooded the cabin bedroom. Sansa couldn't help glancing back to see where the intruder was and...

_Oh gods, he's hot. He's sleepy and hot._

“Jon?”

The man standing there had dark, messy curls and a beard. He was currently rubbing at his eyes and scowling. At the sound of his name, he froze and blinked up at her, mouth dropping open in shock. Jon was also wearing nothing but his usual black tee and a matching pair of boxer briefs. Sansa's brain began to work as she took in the pile of clothes and shoes by the wall and a duffel bag with the tell-tale airport security tag on it.

“Sansa? By the Great Other's teat, what are you doing here?” He bit out, glaring at her and the lights.

Not exactly the reaction she desired when confronted with her teenage crush, the source of her greatest humiliation. The man she had been running away from for years even as she looked for pieces of him in virtually every man and woman she dated.

“Trying to get home, same as you probably,” she shrugged, trying not to stare at his hairy legs or the bulge in his underwear. Evidently she was failing at that because he glanced downward, flushed, and grabbed for his jeans, pulling them on.

“Clearly they didn't do their job right when they booked you into the room and it looked like this one was empty.”

“I guess we should head down to the main building and get this all straightened out...”

“Yeah, we probably should.”

A scant minute later, they were making their way to the building that housed the concierge, wrapped back up in their coats and gloves. The silence was so oppressive, Sansa couldn't stand it.

“Where were you flying in from?” She asked him, curious.

“Oldtown.” Sansa was floored. He was in the same city as her now? For how long, and how come Robb hadn't told her? In that moment she realized that maybe her older brother was more perceptive than he let on, the utter ass. “You still there, too?”

“Yep.” She bit out. _There's no way you didn't know that already._

Jon nodded tersely. “Ah. Well, it was probably more wishful thinking on my part to risk the flight, but I just wanted to get to Wintertown for the holidays. My mother threatened me, you see.”

Sansa couldn't bring herself to speak, her chest feeling like it was being crushed by everything that could have been. Who was she kidding? Jon probably had a girlfriend by now and nothing would have come from them in the same city...after all, he hadn't sought her out.

“Small world,” Jon mused as they entered the building and strolled side-by-side into the lobby.

“Small world, big fate,” Sansa muttered bitterly.

 

 

* * *

 

 

She’d had a stupid crush on Jon Snow when she was seventeen. The following year, he was still in the Army and she was still at home for undergrad. Robb had brought him home while they were on leave and one of their friends from high school put on a party. College had done Sansa a lot of good, she’d spread her wings and dated around a bit. Somehow, she’d realized how much she actually knew about Jon and how much his traits appealed to her. Also, her fantasies had often involved him. That hadn’t helped either.

There'd been these rum concoctions. Sansa had been feeling confident and tipsy drunk, buoyed by the many months of thinking of Jon in a different way, so she had just stepped close and planted one on him.

He had just stood there, absolutely still, not responding at all. By the time Sansa realized she had misjudged things terribly, he had already been pushing her away with a sigh.

She could admit she had cried a bit into her pillow after that had blown up in her face. Gods, she had been so humiliated, she mostly avoided talking to him since then. It’d been easy.

Until now.

 

* * *

 

 

Ten minutes later, what she had thought would be an easy enough fix turned out to be anything but. The apologetic night manager had reiterated no less than four times that all those flights being grounded had wreaked havoc on their records since there were many passengers having their hotel rooms and/or cabins comped by the airlines. Sansa didn't like this situation any better than Jon, but her parents had raised her to never take her frustrations out on customer service employees. She took one look at the late hour and the exhaustion on Jon's face and made a decision.

“It's okay, he can stay in my room tonight. He knows my family so he's not exactly a stranger.” To Jon, she said, “It's 1:30 in the morning and you have no idea if there's even any vacancies in other hotels. You might as well get some sleep tonight.”

“If you really don't mind...” She kind of did, okay? How on earth was she going to sleep next to Jon tonight and not have her judgment impaired by how attractive she still found him? What Sansa needed was _distance_.

“I don't,” she lied.

Five minutes later, she was tucked back into what was now her side of the bed while Jon slowly lowered himself into his side, still wearing his jeans. Sansa considered telling him he could take them off if it would make him feel more comfortable, but given how skittish he was behaving right now, her suggestion might give him an aneurysm.

He'd of course offered to take the couch, but she'd snorted and pointed out that even though he was shorter than her, he still wouldn't fit on that couch. That dig had only gotten her a baleful glare.

“Alright?” She asked him, reaching up with one hand to touch the lamp switch.

“Yeah, I'm good.”

She laid there in the darkness for what had to have been several minutes before she built up the courage to talk to him. What better time to have The Talk than when he's trapped in a cabin with her during a blizzard? “Don't worry about it...us being in the same city now. I've moved past what happened.”

Next to her, Jon exhaled audibly. “Not that I don't appreciate the sentiment, but why exactly shouldn't I worry?”

“I meant you don't have to not talk to me or hide from me. So, if you have a girlfriend or boyfriend, I'm not going to have a hysterical meltdown.”

Now that her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, she could make out the faint outline of Jon's body. He might be two feet feet away from her, but that distance felt like nothing at all. Sansa was hyperaware of every little movement he made and the way the motion rippled across the bed. The enormity of the mangled history they shared was not lost on her. But it was also bittersweet because right after she'd just told Jon he didn't have to feel beholden to her, she wanted him with an intensity that _hurt_.

What if he could be everything she ever wanted, but couldn't have, and she had to spend the rest of her life always wondering, always wanting?

“Thanks. But I've actually been single for a while now.”

“Oh.”

There was a huff, as if he wanted to laugh but managed to stop it in time.

Sansa felt the last bit of tension flood out of her body and now her eyes were heavy, her body all warm and toasty under the covers.

“I wanted to talk to you, but I saw you with that pr- your boyfriend and-” he trailed off. Maybe she was already dreaming this part of the conversation.

“Hm? Harry? Oh he dumped me last month.”

“Sorry.” Did he not sound the least bit sorry or was she imaging that too?

“”Salright,” she mumbled, turning over onto her side. “He was selfish...and vain...and lousy in bed...” With that, she was out like a light.

 

 

* * *

 

 

By 10 a.m. It was clear they wouldn't be making it out of Seagard. Conditions in the skies were just too poor, it'd be dangerous. They'd stuck together as they headed down to the concierge building and waited for one other as they attempted to book a flight on their respective airlines. She wasn't sure why they'd done that, but she didn't feel like saying goodbye to Jon just yet and trying to figure everything out on her own.

As they re-entered the cabin, Jon gave way to her, his hand lightly touching her back, doing things to her insides Sansa didn't want to speak of. He had showered after her that morning and pulled his damp curls back into a honest-to-gods manbun, which looked great on him- if the amount of times she had surreptitiously glanced over at him was any indication. And he smelled so good, even if she couldn't place the cologne.

Once the door closed, she felt the onset of hot tears just as the bite of icy air left her face.

“Hey, come here. We'll make it home eventually.” Jon pulled her close.

Sansa nuzzled into the embrace, feeling the strength in his arms. “I'm not usually this pathetic, just so you know.”

“I don't think you're pathetic.”

“It's just been a long year and a hard semester.”

“And you just want your mom's cooking?”

“Mm-mnh.”

“I don't blame you. I used to make excuses to stay over at your house so I could eat your mom's food.”

“What about your mom? Are you looking forward to her cooking this Midwinter?”

“Gods, no. She finds cookbooks 'too restricting' and if the smoke alarms aren't going off at least once during dinner, it'd be a miracle.” Sansa giggled at that.

“You laugh, but I'll have you know we were on a first-name basis with pretty much every takeout place in Wintertown. Who else can boast that?”

They stood there like this for a while, until she began to suspect this was going on a bit long for a hug between near strangers.

“Oh. Well.” She finally said, disengaging herself before she made a further fool of herself. “Don’t let me get in your way, I’m going to go head into town for lunch.”

Jon looked like he wanted to say something but instead he ran a hand over his hair to smooth down any errant curls. “Sure, of course. I should probably see if any stores are open and finish my gift shopping.”

 

* * *

 

 

 

Sansa found herself fuming all the way into town before she reminded herself that it was Midwinter's Eve and she really should try to enjoy it as much as possible. With that resolution in mind, she studied each building for something that was not only open but which struck her fancy.

There was a small bar/restaurant that looked to be full of stranded travelers like her and so she decided to stop there, to grab something to eat and drink. She had barely sat down with her half sandwich and bowl of soup when Jon slid into the booth next to her. "Wha- _Jon_?" She gaped at him, melted cheese oozing out of the sandwich in her hands.

“Look, Sansa, I did some thinking on the walk down here. I wasn’t…no, that’s not true. In Oldtown, I  _was_  kind of trying to avoid running into you, but—“

 _Ouch._ “Good to know.”

“ _But_ …I just,” He seemed at a loss for words. “That night when you kissed me, you had barely started college and I had signed my life over to the Army. We were going to be deployed overseas and what kind of relationship is that when you're eighteen? Also I didn't want to make things tense with Robb and your family. Maybe that made me a coward.”

Her tongue was thick against the roof of her mouth as she rolled his words around in her mind. It was a bit vindictive, but she kept her tone as light and uncaring as possible.

"Like I said last night, you don't need to worry about avoiding me anymore. Oldtown's big enough for the both of us." 

His presence remained steady next to her, same with his gaze. "I chose Oldtown because of you, Sansa. But by the time I made it there, you were with that arsehole, Hardyng. _That_ was why I avoided you- no matter how much Robb or Arya told me he was a jerk, I wasn't going to interfere with your relationship."

Well, didn't that just take the bite out of her anger?

 _"_ And now?" _What do you want, Jon Snow?_

"I want you, however you want me." Jon was one of the most plain-spoken men she knew, and between his words and the beseeching look in his eyes, Sansa could feel herself melting.

“What if I don’t want a relationship now?” It was a lie that protected her pride. Dangling this possibility in front of Jon might well be playing with fire, but for all he hurt and frustrated her, she still wanted him.  Glancing over at him with a challenging arch to her eyebrow, Sansa watched as his jaw clenched. Maybe she was having too much fun watching Jon get himself worked up; it was her way of punishing him, which was probably petty of her.

"Then I'd say you would have a better time with me than with that milksop. So what do you say, Sansa? Are you brave enough?"

She met his dark eyes with a steady stare of her own. She wasn't about to let him get one up on her, not after he'd made her feel after she had kissed him. Also, she was a lot more confident at twenty-three than she'd been at eighteen. "That depends, are you secure enough to let me tie you up?"

The heat of his body was so close to hers, his face but inches away. She could feel the telltale increase in her heartbeat and the answering throb between her tightly clasped thighs. Jon's nostrils flared again and he searched her face for any sign of hesitation. Finding none, he began to leave the table. 

"No." She declared. Jon turned back, disbelief scrunching up his face.

"No?"

For her part, Sansa kept a straight face. "Nope. Not until I finish my lunch."

With that, she returned to her plate and ignored him as she picked the panini up and began to eat it. There was a soft chuff of laughter next to her and she tried not to smile in victory. The soft, barely-there caress of a thumb over her back, which scraped against the line of her bra through her turtleneck, nearly made her shiver and forget all about her plan.

 

* * *

 

  
  


She broke out the wine first, of course.

And took a few sips while she watched Jon stoke the fire; the bunch of his muscles underneath his sweater was stoking  _her_  fire, too. She almost giggled at the horrible pun she’d just made, but schooled her features when he straightened and turned around, extending his arms outward.

“Well, you’re calling the shots here. How do you want me?” He looked much too earnest than he had a right to be.

She wanted him shirtless on top of her, pressing her into the mattress of her bed, was how. Less than five minutes after initiating that first kiss and tugging him backwards towards her room, she had exactly that.

You know how it feels in the morning when you sit up and stretch for the first time in hours, such a peculiar but deeply satisfying sensation? That’s how it felt to have Jon settling in between her parted thighs. The hard, heavy weight of him. The solid mass in between her knees as she locked her ankles at the base of his spine. Actualized in a way her girlish fantasies never could.

Kissing him, really kissing him, was all chapped lips and tingling heat. Sansa pressed her palms against the bristles along his jawline and moaned softly against Jon’s mouth before turning her head and encouraging him to nip along the skin of her exposed throat. His hands… _oh god, his hands_. They blazed a trail up her abdomen, bare because her first act once inside the bedroom had been to tug her turtleneck off.

He was shirtless, too, and her fingers were dancing over his ribcage while she silently mapped out each rib, every vertebrae in his spine. They dipped into the space between his arm and shoulder and she used her grip there as leverage to buck her hips up into his thickening erection.  Jon, who had been studiously applying himself to the task of giving her a hickey, raised his head to stare down at her with a small grin tugging on his wetted lips.

“I wouldn’t have thought you’d want to hurry though this.”

“Intensity does not equal tempo.” She retorted against the whorls of his left ear before closing her lips around the earlobe and nibbling. He jerked against her like a gunshot, unable to stop the small gasp from leaving his lungs along with his breath.  His comment about her eagerness did sting a little, and Sansa decided to turn the tables a little.

“I’m pretty sure you agreed to let me tie you up,” she sighed against his hair. Jon stilled and lifted himself a little further off her body. His eyes were so dark, the pupils blown nearly the entire breadth of the iris.

“Aye, so I did. I don’t suppose you have something on hand to use as rope?” He slowly backed away off her body, raising his eyebrows as he went.  Sansa decided to ignore his obvious bravado since he was the one about to be in a relatively vulnerable position.  She’s always wanted to do this, and not just to Jon.

“I have scarves that will do the trick,” she told him. Practically bouncing off the bed, she went to her open suitcase and began to rummage through it. “You might want to take your jeans off first, though.”

Lights dimmed and cinnamon candles aglow, Sansa stepped out of her pants and watched as Jon, clad in only his boxer briefs, reclined back against the pillows. She might have wanted to do this, but now that she was in the moment, she found herself at a bit of a loss of how to make the scene flow naturally. Giving up, she just stepped closer to the headboard and raised one silky scarf in front of her body. Jon obediently placed his wrists near the hand-carved wood so she could get to work.

“Huh. You sure you’ve never done this before?” He muttered, watching her closely. Sansa shrugged.

“I spent a few summers at camp with Robb and Arya near White Harbor. I didn't care for it, but I was always an excellent student; they made sure I knew my way around knots.” She told him matter-of-factly.

He tested the give in the scarf and, finding none, shivered before relaxing into the mattress.  Sansa bit her lip, staring down at him with worry. “You trust me with this, right? You know I’ll stop if—“

“Yes, I do. I trust you.” His gaze never wavered. Sansa nodded dumbly, as if only now realizing that she truly had Jon Snow at her mercy and now she had to figure out what to do with him.

“Right.  I’m going to touch you now.” And with that, she placed one knee on the mattress near his hip and swung herself up and over until she was straddling him.  His entire body was on display for her to explore and, cheeks faintly burning, she set out to do exactly that.

She liked the way the slightly coarse hair on his legs felt as she lightly squeezed his thighs and calves. Jon jerked a little underneath her when she ran a finger along the arch of one foot. She smiled a little at that before moving back up to his torso, which she decided to pepper with chaste kisses.  Jon was almost entirely silent and when Sansa met his eyes, his mouth was open and his eyelids hooded.

She pressed her lips to his then, heart pounding with excitement at this new connection between them even as she raked her nails down his chest, over the flat planes of his nipples. Jon grunted softly into her mouth and Sansa allowed herself a moment to appreciate the feel of his biceps and the corded muscles in his forearms before she shimmied back downwards.

“Turn over,” she commanded him. Jon groaned and she was pretty sure she heard a muttered ‘ _fucking hells_ ’ before his face was muffled by the pillow. Sansa repeated her earlier actions, this time adding small nips along his back and thighs. She might have spent more time than necessary massaging his butt, which anyone would have forgiven her for.

(There may have been more than one diary entry devoted to his butt when she was seventeen.)

“Sansa…” He was squirming against the sheets, arching his back and tugging on his binds.

She shushed him and reached behind her back to undo her bra. Once the material was tossed aside, she leaned over him and let her breasts brush along the line of his back. Sansa made a noise, then, and rubbed her damp, cloth covered mound against the curve of his ass. She was already so turned on, she wanted to do everything to this man.

She shook herself from her lust-addled reverie and realized Jon was talking to her. No, not talking.  _Pleading_.

“…just let me turn around, it’ll be so much better…”

Panting lightly, she raised herself off his back.  “Alright. Turn around.”

Her nipples tingled when she saw his attention rake over her bared breasts and his nostrils flared when he made out the dark spot on the front panel of her purple panties.

“I gotta say, I’m starting to regret not doing this earlier.” He stated glibly, gripping the floral material of the scarf in his hands.

Sansa made a noncommittal noise before turning her attention to the state of his boxer briefs.  He had quite the damp spot himself and his erection was straining against the black cotton. “Uh, Sansa? You don’t have to do that—“

The rest of his totally unconvincing argument was drowned out by the broken moan he made when she dipped down and began to mouth at the head of his cock through the material.  Unfortunately for Jon, she was perfectly content to make him suffer for a while.

By the time she tugged his underwear down his thighs, he couldn’t seem to halt the stream of half-muttered curses or near growled platitudes. He was so tense; his abdomen clenched and his body rose and fell as he tried to breathe deeply enough to maintain control. But when he started making shallow thrusts up into her mouth, Sansa let go of his penis with a wet pop.

“Sansa!” It was truly something to see a former soldier like Jon reduced to whining.

“I can’t have you too close before I have a chance to have some fun for myself.” She quipped, trying not to smirk at his incredulous expression. “Are you actually complaining?”

Jon’s mouth opened and closed, and his eyebrows furrowed before he dropped his head back onto the pillow, relaxing somewhat. “No.” There was only a hint of obstinacy in his tone.

Sansa slid her panties down over her hips and let them fall to the floor next to the bed before reaching for one of the condom packets she had left on the nightstand.  She carefully rolled the latex over his erection and then placed her palm on his pectorals for balance as she held herself over the tip and lowered herself gradually. He was on the thicker side, but thankfully not too long to be uncomfortable, so Sansa only had to deal with some stretching before she was fully seated on his thighs.

She tucked her legs against Jon’s ribcage and braced her palms against his shoulders, canting her hips against the length of his erection. His eyes closed, then, and she couldn't help being extremely flattered by the blissed out expression on his face.

She rode him leisurely at first, simply enjoying the feel of him filling her. Jon did his best to rock his hips in counterpoint to hers and before long, the two of them were breathing shallowly as they worked against each other, straining towards a release of the tension winding itself tighter and tighter in their bodies. Sansa bent herself near parallel to his body, the red of her hair like a waterfall over his torso, and moaned loudly when her clit ground itself against the base of his cock. The sparks of pleasure were sharp and she felt her entire body grow warm and heavy as she realized how close she was to the edge. 

"Jon," she groaned as she reached down with her right hand and began to rub against her clit even as the movement of her hips became rougher and more frenzied. Sansa couldn't bring herself to care what she looked like right in that moment, too focused on that rising tide of pleasure. But she could feel Jon moving against her, saying encouraging words even as he pulled his binds tight with the effort of holding off on his own orgasm. 

It hit her without warning, cresting and plunging her into the darkness of her long-awaited release. She cried out as she fucked him through it, clamping down around him and rotating her hips in tight circles. Sansa opened her eyes then and watched Jon shudder as he thrust uncontrollably, his abdomen rolling with his own climax. It was almost like a feedback loop that allowed her to draw the little ripples out, her fingers still lazily stimulating her clitoris. Eventually, the air began to cool against her skin and Sansa stopped squeezing her inner muscles around Jon's cock. He couldn't stop shivering, but that might have been because she was alternating between running her nails down his chest and tugging at the damp curls on his head. 

His eyes were barely open by that point and the scarf was pulled taut because he had relaxed completely and his arms laid limp against the pillow on either side of his head. He looked beautiful then, all sated and accepting of his bondage. Sansa committed the image to memory. Finally, she lifted herself off him and her legs shook from the effort. Still, she went about taking care of everything- removing the condom and disposing of it before she undid the knots around his wrists. When she slipped under the covers and he joined her, Jon turned onto his side facing her, looking at her as if he was seeing her for the first time.

They said nothing. 

He leaned in and brushed his lips over her cheeks and her eyelids, warm breath skittering over her skin. Fingers combed through her hair, lifting the messy strands away from her neck. Sansa watched him do this as she pillowed her cheek on both hands. And then his callused fingers were caressing the bare, soft skin of her back and she was scooting closer to his body as the echo of being filled and stretched floated at the back of her mind. 

She'd challenged him to this; years of pent up feelings that had carried over had made it a matter of pride. Wounded pride. But here, in the aftermath, Sansa couldn't bring herself to get up and get dressed or to tell him to get out. Instead, she drifted off to sleep, lulled by the rhythm of his breathing against her cheek.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The digital clock told her it was almost five in the evening when she awoke from her nap. The bed next to her was empty and Sansa reminded herself that they were snowed in before she went thinking he’d done a bunk. Padding in her thick socks towards the living room, Sansa could make out the mussed up curls peeking up over the back of the couch.

Jon was slouched on the cushions, watching the dregs of light in the sky disappear through the window, a pensive look on his face. The fire had been stoked recently, making shadows dance over his body.

“For what it's worth,” she began, shifting her weight from one foot to another. “I'm sorry I made you feel uncomfortable spending time with my family. You shouldn't have had to fear losing Robb and everyone else because I had a stupid crush on you. Forgive me.”

He turned to look at her then, features softening as he smiled. “For what it's worth, I'm sorry I was so harsh with you- you didn't deserve that. There's nothing to forgive, Sansa.” Jon patted the space next to him on the couch and she crossed the space between it and the coffee table to curl up against his body on the cushion. They sat in silence for several minutes.

Finally: “I've known for a long time that I let my fear get in the way of a relationship with you.”

Hope bloomed in her chest. “Yeah?”

Jon raised his head, bending far enough back so he could see her. When his hand cupped her jaw, thumb brushing along her cheekbone, Sansa felt those familiar old flutters in her belly.  Jon looked dead serious and she breathed in sharply before refocusing her attention anywhere but on his face, to escape the intensity of her emotions.

“I don’t want to get the wrong idea.” She tempered her happiness, throwing his words back at him. Jon flinched but didn’t seem irritated.  His had was massaging the muscles at the back of her neck, keeping her from being able to tense up and making her feel like giving in and curling up against him.

“You and I, we were in very different places back then. And I didn’t think we should have started something when it would likely end up with a messy breakup and Robb and Arya stuck in the middle.”

“But you think it’d be different now?” She murmured as he pushed her closer and placed his lips against the crown of her head.  She was already giving in; she could feel it in the way she was relaxing against him, accepting the intimacy he was offering her.

“Yeah. I’m home now, we live near each other, and we’ve grown into ourselves. Are you saying no?”

“No,” she said, a mite petulantly. She felt him smile against her forehead.

“Are you saying yes?”

“…yes.” His chest rumbled with a chuckle and she poked him in the side sharply in retaliation.

“You don’t have to sound so put-out about it, Sansa.”

Raising her head from the crook of his neck, she finally let herself smile at him. “Maybe my outlook would be improved by dinner at my favorite restaurant back home.”

“The Dornish place?” Her smile became a bit more broad.

“That’s the one. You noticed.”

Jon looked much too smug for his own good. “Look at me, already scoring lemoncake points.”

Sansa rolled her eyes. Suddenly, the serendipity of the moment settled over her.  There was frost on the windows, a fire going, she was curled up against Jon’s warm body, made even cosier by her favorite oversized sweater, it was Midwinter's Eve and she had already received something she’d really wanted for years.

“Just kiss me, you numpty.”

“As you wish.”

 


End file.
